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Dave’s shut it down.

So I’m shutting down Scripting News now, to give me some time to think, and to give you all a demo of what it would be like if it weren’t here. These last few days have been really awful. You can’t imagine what it’s like to have so many people screaming at you. It’s inhuman, especially considering that my health isn’t that good. The only conclusion I can come to is that I shouldn’t be doing this.

You know… I don’t like seeing people feel bad. But the current situation came about in part because people felt Dave was using Scripting News in order to unduly affect certain technical issues. Retreating is one way to say “OK, I’ll stop.” I’m not sure Dave’s gonna get the desired effect here.

Also, as a technologist (and as someone who’s recommended Dave’s protocols in a business setting), watching a site vanish does not give me warm fuzzies. Sure, it’s still there as http://scriptingnews.userland.com/, so I can still get to archived posts and so forth. But man, how do you rely on a spec which can vanish at any moment?

Pensive times.

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Katharine Hepburn, rest in peace.

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Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader, is all about criminalizing gay marriage. It’s a pretty odd argument, too. Let’s step closer, shall we?

His fear is that “this zone of privacy that we all want protected in our own homes is gradually — or I’m concerned about the potential for it gradually being encroached upon, where criminal activity within the home would in some way be condoned.” That’s a little stumblemouthed on the face of it, actually. If criminal activity within the home was being condoned, that’d be expanding the zone of privacy. Not encroaching upon it. Still, I think you can see what he meant.

Still, it’s odd, isn’t it? The recent Supreme Court decision legalizing sodomy doesn’t condone criminal behavior. It clarifies what may be considered criminal. Those are two very different things. If the Supreme Court had said “It’s OK to make sodomy illegal, but you can do it in your bedroom if you like,” I can see where Frist might be coming from. Alas, that’s not what they said.

One more thing: “Generally, I think matters such as sodomy should be addressed by the state legislatures. That’s where those decisions — with the local norms, the local mores — are being able to have their input reflected.”

I’m curious as to how big a locale is. For example, if Provincetown decided to outlaw het sex, would that be OK? If it reflects local norms and local mores?

Perhaps not. “Asked whether he supported an amendment that would ban any marriage in the United States except a union of a man and a woman, Frist said: ‘I absolutely do, of course I do.’”

That’s not very much like allowing the state legislatures to make decisions based on the local norms, is it? I sense some inconsistency here.